Month: August 2019

Surprise! Addie’s Parents Were Cousins!!!

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I know.  Some of you are saying, “So what?  I’ve heard this so many times already.”  But this time it’s different.  I’m not talking about the Landry side of the family, I’m talking about the Bucklin side of the family.  More specifically, I’m talking about the Hine line of my family. 

My mom was Betty Lou Bucklin Landry.  She was the daughter of Fred D. Bucklin.  His mother was Addie Mae Hine Bucklin.  She was born in Noblesville, Indiana, but lived her adult life in southern Louisiana.  She was alive when I was born, but she died a few weeks later.  So I have no personal memories of her.  Maybe some of my older siblings or cousins may have some memories of her.  I’ve posted several photos of her in the past and have given her a hard time about all the times that she was scowling in the photos.  Even in this photo she’s not really smiling.

Addie Mae Hine Bucklin (on the right) with her parents Susan G. Stanbrough Hine and George Henry Hine in Hathaway, Louisiana, circa 1919.

Maybe it was because she found out that her parents were related!  I doubt it, though.  She probably wasn’t even aware of the fact, because they were not very closely related.  But from what I’ve been able to figure out, they were definitely cousins.

I discovered this connection shortly after I found out the maiden name of George Henry Hine’s mother.  Her name was Mary Malina Cox.  She was the daughter of Benjamin Cox and Jemima Vestal Cox.  That name was very familiar to me.  It was not because of any association with pancakes, either. 

It had to do with Susan Stanbrough’s ancestry.  I had found the Vestal name in her family tree a few years ago.  When I started looking at relatives in that family group, I found a few Jemima Vestals.  It seemed to have been a common family name at some point, but its usage has declined.  Though my sister Jamie’s name is close.  All you’d have to do is add a second ‘m’ and rearrange the letters.  It wouldn’t really work, though.  “Jemima crack corn” just doesn’t have the same ring as “Jamie crack corn.”  Sorry, Jamie, I couldn’t resist!

So Susan’s ancestry goes like this:  Susan’s mother was Lydia Jane Mills.  Susan’s grandfather was James Mills.  Her great grandmother was Lydia Jay.  Her great great grandmother was Mary Elizabeth Vestal (there it is!).  And her great great great grandparents were William Vestal and Elizabeth Mercer.  This was a pretty long time ago – they were born in the late 1600s.   Elizabeth was born in Great Britain, but William and Mary Elizabeth were born in Pennsylvania.

On George’s side I’ve already told you his grandmother’s name.  His great grandfather was Jesse Vestal and his great great grandfather was Thomas Curren Vestal.  Thomas Current Vestal was the younger brother of Mary Elizabeth Vestal.  That would mean that William Vestal and Elizabeth Mercer were also the great great great grandparents of George Hine.  So he and his wife Susan were fourth cousins through their Vestal connection.

Fourth cousins sounds pretty far when you first hear it, but it’s interesting to see it in association with this same family.  Two of Addie’s sons were Ralph and Fred Bucklin.  Ralph’s daughter was Helen and Fred’s daughter was Betty Lou, my mom.  Helen and mom were first cousins.  Helen’s son and my sister Karen are second cousins.  Their children are third cousins and their grandchildren are fourth cousins.

So what have we learned?  George and Sue were fourth cousins.  I was alive at the same time as their daughter Addie.  At present, there are descendants of Addie who are fourth cousins to each other.  All of this together indicates that I’m getting old.  Yet it doesn’t make me feel old.  It makes me feel like I’m learning perspective.

But you can call me old if you want too.

Aint Zita’s 1939 Visit

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I know this photo has been posted before on Facebook.  I had a version of the photo from my dad, but it was not a good quality, even with a good scan.  I fixed it up as good as I could and shared it, too.  But it was not a blog post.  I got a better quality photo from cousin Sis a while back, with intentions to get it looking better to share.

And here it is!  Ain’t it grand?  I really like this old photo from around 1939.  I think it was taken in Lake Charles at my grandparents’ home when my grandmother’s sister Zita came for a visit.  Hence the title.  Or course, the title doesn’t actually say “Aunt Zita.”  I spelled the title the way I’ve heard the name ever since I can remember.  And for some reason I hear the other ones’ names pronounced like “ant,” but for Zita I always hear the “Aint.”  Say it!  It’s got a nice ring to it. 

The grandmother I’m talking about is my  paternal grandmother Germaine Erie Patureau Landry.  My generation always called her “Mee Maw.”  She was a sweetie.  She was married to Robert Joseph Landry, Sr., who we called Pee Paw.  At least all of the cousins who were born before he died called him that. 

Now that I’ve introduced those three from the older generation of Patureau kin in this photo, I’ll point out which ones they are.  Zita Patureau Schafer is the woman standing on the far left.  Next to her is Pee Paw, with Mee Maw looking over his shoulder.  All of the others in the photo are from the next generation in the Patureau line.  Nobody from that generation of our Patureau line had Patureau for a last name.  Maybe someone from our Patureau line should marry a cousin with the Patureau last name?  Just a thought!

Seven of the eight children of Mee Maw and Pee Paw are in the photo.  Their oldest son A. J. is not in it.  Next to Mee Maw we have Marie, Hubert, Germaine, and Bobbie – my dad.  The front row has my dad’s younger siblings along with Aunt Zita’s daughters.  They are actually the daughters of Erie and Zita’s sister Marie Therese “Bee”, who died shortly after the birth of her younger daughter.  Zita married Bee’s widower Clarence Shafer and raised the daughters Sis and Syl as her own.

Sitting in the front is my dad’s brother Johnny, cousin Sis, cousin Syl, sister Frances, and sister Wana.  They all look so sweet and cute.  Hey!  Didn’t I say that about last week’s photo?  Oh, well.  It’s true again this week.  But last week I was working with a photo of my great aunts and uncles, and this week was with my aunts and uncles.  One generation makes a big difference in commonalities in facial features.  While I did see some common features in my own grandmother last week, I didn’t notice as much with my grandfather’s siblings. 

This week I saw many more common features that brought to mind many of my cousins.  So I spent a little time with my sisters Karen and Jamie, my godmother Shirley and her daughter Chelleen, my cousins Colleen, Paula, Jeanne, and Tricia as I worked on the photo.  I had an enjoyable time.  I hope you do, too.

 

Sweet Myrtle With the Bucklins

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Myrtle and the gang circa 1927.

Isn’t this the cutest photo?  Such a great casual photo from over 90 years ago.  Not only was it taken before me or my siblings were born, it was taken before either of my parents were born as well.  And the best thing about it is that my maternal grandmother Myrtle Sylvia Phenice is looking so sweet and cute front and center of the photo.  Then again, everyone else in the photo looks like they are having a good time.

I’ve seen and posted other photos taken at this same location, but most of the other ones were decidedly more formal than this one.  Most of those photos were of the Hine family standing in front of this house in the Hathaway/China area of Jefferson Davis Parish in southern Louisiana.  My grandfather was Fred Bucklin and his parents were Louis Bucklin and Addie Hine.  The house in the background was either their house, or the house of Addie’s parents George Hine and Susan Stanbrough.  George had died in 1919 and Grandma Sue was getting pretty elderly.

I estimated this photo to be from around 1927.  This is another photo that I got from my cousin Carla this summer.  Along with the photo I posted of my grandfather with a tennis racket, this photo was a photo that I had never seen before.  It has quickly become one of my favorite photos of Grandma.  Wait, I can’t refer to that cute young girl as Grandma!  I’ll have to call her Myrtle.  I usually don’t want to have the original photos of the ones I scan, but those two were exceptions.  The one of Fred with the tennis racket had a duplicate, so that was an easy call.  This photo was the only copy Carla had, but she was gracious enough to let me have it.  Thanks again, Carla!

The other great thing about it is that everyone in the photo is a family member.  I’m pretty sure that is her husband to be Fred next to her on the right in this photo.  It looks like him and who else would it be?  Sure, he has an identical twin brother Clarence, but it’s more likely to be Fred next to Myrtle.  The rest of the people in the photo are Fred’s siblings.  Let me tell you who is who.

On each end of the group are the twins Ruth and Roy Bucklin.  Ruth and Roy were fraternal twins born in 1915.  They were the youngest of the 12 children born to Lou and Addie.  In case you can’t figure out which one is which, Ruth is the girl on the far left and Roy is the boy on the far right.  Next to Ruth is an older Bucklin brother.  I’m thinking this is Robert, who was born in 1911 and would be about 16 in this photo.  To the right of him is Edna, the next older Bucklin sibling.  She was born in 1909 and she is the main reason we have this photo.  She had an early interest in photography.  She had a camera and took many of the photos of the family that are around today.  (No this is not a selfie!  They didn’t do selfies back then.  But if she had, you would have seen her arm!) 

Continuing on… Like I said, I think the boy to the right of Myrtle was Fred.  They both would have been around 20 years old.  In a couple of years they would be married and starting a family of their own.  The last unidentified boy in the photo is a little more questionable.  But I’m pretty sure this is Fred’s older brother Carl.  He was only a few years older than Fred and somehow developmentally delayed.  From other photos I’ve seen of him, I think it is him.  And again, who else would it be?  The photo shows the younger siblings of Fred.  He doesn’t look like Herbert Bucklin.  I’m open to any corrections or discussions.

Isn’t it great that we have this photo?  I’m sure all of my siblings, niblings, and cousins will really like it.  And with all of the other photos and postcards I scanned, there will be many more to come.

Landry Brothers – 356 Years and Counting

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I went to a genealogical society meeting last weekend and ran into a cousin that I didn’t know.  That’s not really difficult to do when I go to the genealogical meetings in West Baton Rouge Parish.  Our Landry ancestors have been in southern Louisiana since 1767.  They started out in St. Gabriel in Iberville Parish, then 100 years later they were in Brusly in West Baton Rouge Parish.  Another 100 years later my family was in Lake Charles and Jennings. 

Al, Rob, and Van Landry in 1965 on Lucy Street in Jennings, Louisiana. 

When I met this cousin, Jocelyn from Addis, I found out that we were related through two different Landry lines.  My great great grandfather Narcisse Landry had an older brother named Elie that Jocelyn descends from.  (I also descend from their brothers Elie Onezime and Joseph Emmanuel.)  Narcisse’s father Joseph Ignatius had a brother named Mathurin that Jocelyn also descends from.  All of this made me think of the topic of brothers.

There have been a lot of Landry brothers through the years.  How else would we get all of these Landrys in southern Louisiana?  A good many of them descend from Rene Landry (b. 1634) who was from France and was a founder of Acadie.  He had eight sons (I descend from three of them) and seven daughters (I descend from two or three of them as well).  I get my last name from the first son born to him in 1660, Antoine.

Antoine had six sons and six daughters.  I only descend from one of his sons – Pierre, who was born in 1690.  I descend from two of the daughters – Anne and Francoise.  Pierre had three sons, including Augustin who was born in 1719.  He was the father of Joseph Ignatius and Mathurin that I mentioned earlier.  They also had a brother named Francois and a half brother named Joseph Marie.

Landry brothers Alcide (in 1890) and Trasimond (in 1861). I descend from both of them.

Joseph Ignatius was really special.  I wrote a post about him and the five lines of descent from him to me.  I descend from three of his eight sons.  That would be Narcisse, Onezime, and Manuel that I mentioned earlier.  Narcisse had four sons and I descend from his youngest two – Trasimond and Alcide.  They are the first generation that I have photos of.  Though I have a photo of Alcide when he was older, he was actually the younger of the two.

Landry brothers of the 1910s – Sebastien, Louis, Joe, and Rob (my grandfather) were sons of Alcide.

Alcide was my great grandfather along my paternal line.  He had seven sons and the youngest of those was my grandfather Robert Joseph Landry, Sr.  He was known as Rob, Uncle Rob, Papa, Pappy, or Pee Paw by the family, depending on your relationship to him.  He married his cousin, but so did his brothers Seb and Louis.

Uncle Joe did not marry a close cousin, but he did marry a woman with the last name of Landry.  That’s my inside joke when I talk about all of the cousin marriages in my family line.  I always say, “At least they didn’t marry someone with the same last name.”  That doesn’t seem to convince anyone of the normalcy of cousins marrying cousins.

My grandfather Rob Landry with his sons A. J., Hubert, Bob, and Johnny in 1955.

But thankfully, my dad and his siblings turned out all right.  (Though we often wonder about the youngest one!)  Rob was the father of Alcide Joseph (Uncle A. J.), Hubert Joseph (Uncle Hubert), Robert Joseph, Jr. (my dad, known as Bob or Pluto), and John Alfred Xavier (Uncle Johnny  – the youngest).  Uncle Hubert and Uncle Johnny both had more than one son, so there are more Landry brothers out there.

Now that takes us down to my generation.  I have two brothers named Rob and Al.  You can see us in the first photo that I posted that was taken in 1965.  I don’t have any children and neither does my brother Rob.  My brother Al has four children – two boys and two girls.  So there is yet another generation of Landry brothers in my family.

Van, Ryan, Luc, and Bob Landry in Jennings on December 31, 2006.

And since this is Throwback Thursday, I’ll use a photo from way back when for those young brothers.  It didn’t seem that long ago to me, but it is from December of 2006.  And look!  There’s newfangled color and it’s a digital photo.  I’m not used to dealing with those kinds of photos on my blog!

So that brings us through 300 years of Landry brothers in my family line.  I very much appreciate my brothers and it gives me a satisfaction that my ancestors had some of the same experiences.  I don’t know the history before Rene Landry, nor do I know what the future will bring.  Maybe this chronicle will be updated by someone at some future date.  If so, thank you.